After a 3-billion-mile journey, a spacecraft closes in on Pluto

December 5, 2014 11:12 PM

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Get ready, world: NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is about to wake up from its final hibernation and give us our best look yet at the mysterious dwarf planet Pluto.

New Horizons launched in January 2006, and since then it has been on a long, high-speed journey across the solar system. When it wakes up on Saturday, it will have travelled 2.9 billion miles from Earth over the course of nine years.